Fieldrunners 2 for Android

Fieldrunners has been a very popular tower defense game for SubAtomic Studios on Mobile and PC, they followed that up with the even better Fieldrunners 2 which has been available via Steam and on iPhone/iPad for the past few months. Now the wait is nearly over for Android users as SubAtomic have announced April 24th to be the launch date.

We got our hands on a review version close to the final release date to test on our Nexus 7 tablet. Fieldrunners 2 introduces more levels, more weapons, more enemies, and more ways to play. With all that content it’s slated to be the ultimate tower defense experience! If you’ve never played a tower defence game before the principle of building up a line of defence along a path in which dozens of tiny foes come pounding along. Your objective is to design and maintain the defence line to stop every last one of them. Tower defence nicely blends strategy and action, but it can get boring for seasoned first person shooter players. Striking a balance for all players tastes continues to be difficult. That’s done well with Fieldrunners 2 with loads of options for towers, waves, special missions and difficulty levels.

Features

Face waves of fieldrunners that navigate the battlefield with unparalleled realistic swarming behavior

Multi-storied maps route enemies over bridges, under tunnels, and into trenches

Revolutionary “Hybrid Maps” combine the fun of designing mazes with the challenges of fixed path layouts

Sudden Death maps pit players against never ending hordes of enemies in an all new, action packed levels

Puzzle Maps are bonus levels that put players’ understanding of enemy behaviors to the test

Over 30 different enemy types, including elite enemy units with special attacks and rewards

Powerful items allow players to perform precision based attacks like never before

Review

The game starts with the tantalising overview of the Field Runners world (map) that we must work through. Before you start you may want to read the official strategy guide $1.99 but don’t worry there is a quick tutorial to start for new players. There are fours worlds to work through: Grasslands, Hometown, Drylands and Lavaflow. Before starting each game, in game items can be added to fully equip yourself for battle. A whole host of different towers are available than can be bought or earned in game. Towers are available for flames, gatling, glue, tesla, laser, oil, plasma, pyro, spark, railgun, mine, radiation, nuke machine gun, ice, sonic blast, cannon, zap gas, boom-kin, link, napalm, power, polymorph – thats a whole lot of towers! Additional waves can also be purchased to rewind, freeze, smart mine, fire fountain, spanish flu, santa strike, plus combination packs.

This isn’t the first time I’ve played a tower offence game, and I’ll admit my attention does stray. The game starts pretty slow. You place towers along the path of the incoming army! As each new wave comes in your towers take em out! Waves get increasingly larger and starting from soldiers, add motorbikes, tanks and even aeroplanes! You earn more coins as each wave is destroyed allowing you to add more guns, stickies and rockets (these are the in game items selected earlier). As the game progresses and your defences get hammered you need to quickly replenish them before any enemies get past you defence.

The first level has 50 waves taking about 30min to play. This is where it’s easy to get distracted and I can see why this was so popular on the PC (with a browser or social networks up on a second monitor perhaps!). There is a pause button making the game easy to pop in and out off should you be on the go. Better still a fast forward button to speed up gameplay/ High score menus are included so you can compete with other players out there.

Fieldrunners was one of the first tower defence games available on mobile, but it’s since been joined by dozens more with a variety of themes and elements. Instead of changing the formula, Subatomic Studios chose instead to refine the existing formula. Fieldrunners 2 has completely new pin sharp graphics. Over the original game expect three times as many towers and enemies. One such addition is path markers giving the characters a little more free roam. A criticism of the first was that enemies ran ins straight paths to their deaths. In later levels – expect a crazy number of enemies to defeat if you can make it there first!

There has still been no announcement on pricing for Fieldrunners 2, but I’d expect it to be follow the recent trend in freemium games with in app purchases and advertising. We should know in a few weeks.

Video Review

Official Trailer

Dave has been passionate about apps before the term was even coined. He dreamt of a day all his photos could be organised onto one thin fondle slab and of weekends holidaying on Mars. One dream came true! While not scouring the web for the latest apps he develops with Android, Unity3d and Sencha Touch.